Update from the Trenches.

Crib Prison Tent: success! We've even had a few sleep through the night nights.

Aforementioned Job: On hold. Turns out I wasn't actually being offered the job as being asked to apply for the job. There is "another candidate." Too bad, I may have kept my big gob shut a little more, while being very honest about my feelings about the job and my fears about it...we'll see what happens.

Eczema: Well, we went to the doctor yesterday to get an official diagnosis. My doctor...or actually, my Nurse Practitioner, since we have NEVER actually seen the real doctor...anywho, sometimes I think she's smart, sometimes I think she's a totally twit. First off, the clothes she wears suggests that she's not so bright - yesterday's outfit consisted of a primary blue turtle neck, tucked into a straight, tight, above the knee skirt, in an ENTIRELY different shade of (not at all matching) primary blue. Rounding out the outfit was a pair of BLACK tights, and a pair of camel brown low back loafers. I don't know the real word for these kid of shoes, but I have a pair at home and I call them SLIPPERS. But I digress...

The official word on the official skin condition is "dermatitis" which is Latin for "Its some sort of skin condition but I'm not sure exactly what." We went through all the have you changed detergents, soap, eating habits, breathing patterns (ok, not really) and all that jazz. The answer is nope, nope, and nope. She then suggested maybe an allergy to something we were using, and maybe we should switch detergent to a Ivory Snow or something. I calmly explained that we had been using the same, ALL NATURAL, products since Griffin was born, and since we hadn't done anything differently, or started using any new products that might point to an allergy, I wasn't interested in changing any of them to some chemical crap. Especially since we were already using ALL NATURAL stuff, that we had been using since he was BORN. I don't think she heard a word I said, because she then suggested maybe we should change soap, try a Dove soap or something. I repeated the above...again. All natural, since birth, no recent change, etc etc. We continued to have a conversation of all my options for switching products in my home (shampoo, bubble bath...) where she yammered, and I nodded, and thought to myself "nice outfit, twit."

Then she suggested that maybe, just maybe, since Griffin is a blue eyed, blond baby, that he may just have sensitive skin, and before we tried anything drastic, maybe we could just try smearing him with vaseline after his bath, to hold in the moisture. "Like, put it on really thick" she says. Now I'm not terribly interested in lubing my kid all up with vaseline before he crawls into bed, but I did get her point: lets start with the basics, before we go all voodo and start eating spelt bread and stevia the like. So rather than a layer of vaseline (ew, ew, EW!) I tried massaging some olive oil on Griffin last night at bed. I am ECSTATIC to report that his skin is WAY better this morning! So it may just be a case of being sensitive to the dry winter air. I would be overjoyed if that was the case. I can easily buy a vat of olive oil every November...so much easier that changing EVERYTHING we eat!

From the craft table: I took a break after christmas - I was sewed out. I tried to sew last week, but the sounds of World War 3 in the next room (some god-awful shoot 'em up game on the X box) were disturbing my peaceful, relaxing mood. Then I had an Epiphany! Steve got an iPod for christmas, and last night I loaded it up (OK, he loaded it up...I have no clue how!) with some nice "sewing music" and popped on the earphones, and presto chango, adios WW3! It was delightful. I'm back in the saddle, working on a wedding present, for a wedding that is creeping up VERY quickly. (How strange is it that we have TWO weddings in February?)

And that's all, from us, for now. Oh, except for this: